Victories and defeats

Red and White forces swepts back and forth across the old Russian Empire throughout the civil war, as the direction of victory shifted several times. The map here which focuses on European territory provides a striking representation of how close the Whites and their allies came to reaching Moscow. The red lines emanating from the Kremlin show the direction of orders issued by Lenin to various local governement and military groups. The white dotted line shows the Soviets’ defensive “ring of fire” in 1918. The black lines show the White/Allied front lines at the full stretch of their three main strikes at the centre over the course of 1918-1920. The fact that Petrograd, so recently the Russian capital, was nearly taken from the Reds in 1919 shows how uncertain the outcome of the civil war was.